Otohiko Kaga (Japanese name: 加賀乙彦), one of Japan's few Christian writers, is also a medical doctor. After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tokyo, he worked as a hospital and prison psychiatrist before taking up further studies in France. His writing debut came in 1967 with the long novel Furandoru no fuyu (Winter in Flanders). Senkoku (The Verdict) caused a sensation for its depiction of the actual lives of prisoners on death row. Since the late seventies, he has been a full-time writer. He converted to Catholicism under the influence of his friend Shusaku Endo (1923–96), also a writer.
